O Perpetual Revolution of Configured Stars
by Valley of Fear
Summary: "The Doctor loved picnics, with the blankets and the rolling around in the grass and the strange little desserts. Yes, he decided, until the aliens showed up, a picnic had been a great idea." Eleven, Amy, Rory, and the Ponds' neighbors are kidnapped and taken to a planet where a civilization is slowly being wiped out by mysterious enemies. Doctor whump.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello, everyone! This is going to be a multi-chapter story, and I'll publish the next chapter once I'm done editing it. This chapter is sort of almost a prologue: It's mainly for amusement, and it introduces the Ponds' neighbors, who will be in the rest of the story. All of the action will start in the next chapter, by the way._

_I hope you enjoy it, and if you see any typos, feel free to tell me. Typos are obnoxious. Also, reviews would be greatly appreciated._

* * *

O perpetual revolution of configured stars,

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment.

- T.S. Eliot, _The Rock_

* * *

Amy and Rory nodded politely at the conversation of the neighbors and hoped that no alien invasions would interrupt their attempt to get to know the four families better.

"Janet and I are thinking about getting a cat," Linda was saying as she looked over at her sister. "They're awful sweeties, and plus, we're almost getting into our fifties and we're both still spinsters. It's about time that we start accumulating cats."

"Oh, you're not old," Rory protested. He glanced around at the group of adults sitting on chairs and standing by the windows. "Does anyone want something else to drink? We've got tea, soda, and some beer if you're feeling adventurous."

"I'll have a beer," said Darren. The others shook their heads.

"I know we've all been talking about ordinary things, cats and careers and everything" Carol said as Rory headed off to fetch the drink, "but you have to admit that that business with the Olympics this year was the weirdest thing ever."

"Bizarre," Janet agreed. "Did anyone ever explain it?"

"I don't think so. I'm just glad everyone got back okay from wherever they went. That was a blessing at least," Linda said.

Amy glanced out the window, and her heart turned cold at the sight of an alien walking across the backyard. "God. No," she said.

"What?" Carol asked in confusion.

"Just… give me a moment. Rory!" Amy called, and she hurried over to the back door. The neighbors glanced over and saw a tweed-suited man tapping lightly on the glass.

"Who's that young man?" Linda asked.

"Amy? What's going on?" Rory asked, returning with the bottle of beer. "Oh. It's him." He placed the drink down on a table and hurried over to the door.

"Is he one of your friends?" Janet said. "You can't just let him wait out there. Let him in. I'm sure we'll all be happy to meet him."

The Doctor waved again from behind the glass, looking around at the guests. Amy reluctantly opened the door.

"Sorry for popping by unexpectedly," the Doctor said, slipping inside. "I didn't know you had guests." He turned to the nearest person, Linda, and shook her hand. "I'm John Smith. The Ponds', er, Williams's friend from… Leadworth."

"Why'd you come through the back door?" Carol asked.

Frank was peering out the kitchen window. "And what's that big blue thing out there?"

"That's my shed of tools. I cart it around with me when I travel, and I just left it in the back yard, so I thought I might as well come in this way," the Doctor explained. He glanced around at the room as Amy hurried over to shut the blinds in the kitchen. "Are you having a party? Do you have any jammy dodgers? If you don't I know a recipe. Not quite as good as the packaged ones, but sometimes you have to make do. What do you say, Ponds?"

Amy turned to her husband. "Rory, why don't you just stay in here for a minute, and I'll talk to John in the kitchen." She dragged the Doctor into the other room, shut the door, and turned to face him. "Did you really have to come today? This is the first time I've gotten up the courage to face all of the neighbors after Linda saw the Ood you sent us and started screaming."

The Doctor frowned. "Oh. Sorry about that, Pond. But you've got to admit, he does make good sausages."

She smiled reluctantly. "Alright, I'll forgive you for that. But Rory and I are _not_ going on any adventures today. You can either leave and come back later, or you can stay and act like a normal human adult."

"Course I'll stay. I can never pass up a party at the Ponds' house. So, do you have any jammy dodgers?"

"You are so hopeless, Doctor. We're the Williams family, and making jammy dodgers is so not a normal adult thing to do at a neighborhood gathering." She gave him a gentle shove towards the door. "Alright, come with me and I'll show you who everyone is."

When the pair walked out of the kitchen, they saw that the gathering had broken up into two different groups, one in the living room and one in the sitting room. Amy directed the Doctor to where Rory was talking to two middle aged women.

"That's Linda, on the left there, with the blonde hair," the Scot said quietly, "and standing beside her is her sister, Janet. Linda's a social worker, and Janet was a physicist until something happened to her hand." Amy gestured at the red-haired woman's twisted and scarred left hand.

"I've heard some strange ideas about what happened," Linda was saying. "No one knows for sure what it was, but some people say it was a publicity hoax, some say it was a weird government experiment, and some say it was aliens." She turned to the Doctor. "We're just talking about that bizarre thing that happened at the Olympics a few weeks ago."

"Ah, yes," the Doctor said. "That was very odd. Mysterious."

"Yeah," Janet continued. "I heard that no one knows who that man was who lit the torch."

The Doctor looked uncomfortable, and Amy grinned mischievously. "I'm certainly not an expert on these things," she said, "but I'd guess it was aliens." She jabbed the Doctor with her elbow.

"Yep. Definitely aliens," he said.

"But what would they have been doing here? Were they trying to invade the planet, do you think, or did they land here on accident?" Amy asked.

"Oh, I'd guess that they were just lost and scared," the Time Lord said casually.

"Do you think they got away alright?"

"Yes. I'm certain they did."

Amy looked around. "Well, I think I should introduce John to the others now." She turned to him. "Come along, John."

"Oi! That's my line," he complained, but he followed her over to where three of Amy's neighbors were sitting and talking on the couch and chairs.

As the two walked away, Janet stared after them in confusion. "It feels like I missed something in that conversation."

"Yeah," Rory said quietly. "I'm pretty sure you did."

Across the room, Amy and the Doctor sat next to a forty-year-old man. "That's Frank, next to us," she said, leaning over to whisper while the man finished what he was saying. "The two youngest children, Stella and David, are his. The blonde woman on the chair over there is Julia, and she's the mother of the oldest kid here, Jordan, and the wife of Darren, who's that man sitting over there alone. That other woman is Carol. She's an electrician, but no one knows if she has any family or anything. No one's ever seen anyone visit her house."

"It was really fitting that he played the sheep," Frank was saying, "because we named him after David, the shepherd in the Bible." He turned to the Doctor. "Do you have any children, John?"

"Yes, er, no. No children," the father and grandfather replied.

Frank smiled. "Well, you've still got plenty of time. How's Jordan been doing, Julia?"

She looked down at her lap, and the Doctor noticed that her eyes were sunken and dark, as if she had been sleeping poorly. "Well…" she began. "Don't tell Darren, but I'm concerned about Jordan. He behaves badly at school, and the teachers have called home several times. He's just so restless and hyper, except sometimes he has no energy at all and just sleeps all day. I talked to his teacher, and she told me to take him to a psychiatrist to see if he has ADHD or something and to get him some medicine for it, but Darren doesn't want us to. He doesn't want to think anything is wrong with Jordan, and he keeps saying that Jordan will get through it on his own."

"Do you want me to talk to him?" Frank asked. "I talked to one of the parents of Stella's classmates a few weeks ago, and she said that her daughter recently was put on medicine. She said it made a big difference."

"No, Darren would just get defensive. He says that Jordan won't ever amount to anything if we tell him that medicine is the solution to all his problems." Julia looked up from where she had been running her fingers through the material of her dress. "I'm sorry for telling you all this, especially you, John. You just popped over for a party, and now I'm burdening you with all your problems. Darren loves Jordan very much, actually. He just sees things from a different angle."

"It's no problem, Julia," the Doctor said. "Because I've met a lot of people like Darren and a lot of people like Jordan, and I know how these things turn out. Don't give up on Darren yet; there's hope for him. If you keep telling him in the right ways, he'll realize the truth. But Jordan." He smiled. "Jordan is gonna be brilliant. All he needs is people to show him that. Yeah, he might be having a hard time now, his brain might be fighting against him and his father certainly isn't helping, and maybe the hard time will never leave. Maybe it will last forever. But let me tell you, even if he's hyper and hard to control his whole life, he can find a way to make use of it. I was just like him in school, always running off and never sitting still and not listening to the lessons. But you can ask Amy and Rory, and I think I've done a few things in my life, hyper and excitable or not. Jordan will be wonderful. He'll travel places and meet people and find cool things to do with his energy and his lethargy. He'll be truly brilliant. He just needs someone to tell him that he can be."

Julia looked up at the Doctor with tear-filled eyes. "Thank you," she said.

"My pleasure," said the Doctor.

Julia blew her nose, and Carol looked uncomfortable.

Amy cleared her throat. "Well, er, let's go see if Rory needs help with anything," She dragged the Doctor away in the direction of the other room. "You are so bloody weird. Though that was a nice speech. You're pretty good at those."

"Oh, thank you, Pond. I am sort of proud of this body's oratorical skills," he said.

Their progress across the room was interrupted when a young girl, who was perhaps six years old, ran up and grabbed the Doctor's tweed jacket. "We're bored because Mrs. Williams doesn't have any toys," she said without introduction. "What should we do? And who are you? I've never seen you before."

He kneeled down to talk to her. "I'm John Smith, a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Williams. And yes, it's terribly sad that you don't have any toys. Are you Stella?" She nodded. "Oh, that's wonderful! Stella means 'star' in Latin." He picked her up and spun her around. "You're named after the stars." Still holding the girl in his arms, he looked at Amy with a pleading expression.

"Alright, you can play with the kids," she said. "But if anything happens to them, I'll turn you over to the Daleks."

"Cross my hearts, nothing will happen." He set the girl down. "Alright now, what do you want to do?"

She grabbed his hand and pulled him off to the dining room, where the other kids were playing under the table. Amy shook her head fondly and went off to talk to her other guests.

Half an hour later, the Doctor was finishing braiding Stella's hair. "I met this great archer," he said, "while I was in the New Stone Age, and her hair was braided like this, except she had some porcupine quills woven in."

"Wouldn't they poke her?" David asked, running his fingers over the three little braids in his longish hair.

"Nah, she was careful. The arrows were another matter, though. Are you almost done, Jordan?" The Doctor was sitting on the ground in the dining room, and the older boy was perched above him on a chair, carefully folding the Doctor's hair into a braid as the Time Lord tied off the end of Stella's hair.

"Yeah, Mr. Smith. I'm done. Do you have another tie?" Jordan asked.

The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a ribbon. "Be careful with this one. It's pretty old. Belonged to Marie Antoinette, the queen of France."

"Cool," Jordan said, fixing the ribbon into the Doctor's hair.

"Yes it is, isn't it?" the Doctor said. Finished at last with the braiding he and the three children sat in silence for a moment.

"Do you know when the party's supposed to be over?" the doctor asked at last.

"Mum said seven thirty," Jordan said. "How much time do we have left, then?"

"Forty-eight minutes," the Doctor said immediately.

"How do you know so quickly?" David asked.

The Doctor grinned. "I just have a good sense of time." He hopped to his feet and clapped his hands. "So, what do you want to do now? Checkers, hide-and-seek, hovercraft?"

"Can we do hovercraft?" Stella asked excitedly.

"Sure. Do you know where they keep them?"

"Er, I don't think Mrs. Williams has any," Stella guessed, not really knowing what a hovercraft was.

"We'll just have to make a few, then. Follow me out to my… shed. I'd get the materials myself, but I'm supposed to be watching all of you."

The adults had congregated in the kitchen, so no one noticed the Doctor and the three children sneak out the back door. The neighbors could see only the top of the TARDIS through the kitchen window, but Janet heard the clank of metal parts being dropped in a pile on the ground. Frank heard the whir of the sonic screwdriver. And Carol heard the light buzzing of the newly made hovercraft.

When they all heard the laughter and excited squeals of the children, Linda said, "They sound like they're having so much fun. That John of yours is really good with children, Amy."

Amy stood on her tiptoes from her position near the table and tried to see out the window, but she only caught a glimpse of the Doctor's head as he ran by. She laughed at the braids and the blue ribbon that was waving in the air. "Yeah. Sometimes I think he's good with them because he's a child himself."

"How did you and Rory meet John?" Darren asked, and everyone turned their heads toward Rory as he answered with a bland lie. They missed the sight of Stella whizzing past the window in a small flying car, and the conversation continued.

When the time for the guests to leave began to approach, Frank excused himself to fetch his children from the backyard. The thump of the closing door covered up the sound of a crashing hovercraft, and Frank walked around the side of the house to see the Doctor with his arms submerged in a bush. "Come on out of there," the Time Lord said, and he pulled Stella out of the grip of the twigs. Her clothes were wrinkled, and leaves were tangled in her hair.

"What's going on?" Frank asked, smiling, as the Doctor held the girl in his arms and carried her over to her father. Jordan and David followed them, their bare feet sliding through the grass.

"We were just – " David began, but the Doctor interrupted him.

"Playing hide-and-seek. The children wanted to ride a hovercraft, but I told them that it was unsafe and, more to the point, impossible in this century." He winked at the kids, and they giggled.

"Well, you certainly sounded like you were having a good time earlier," Frank said, "but I'm afraid the children have to go. The party's about ready to break up."

The children protested, but Frank refused to give in, and soon the children were being fitted with their shoes in the entryway.

"Thank you for the dinner, Amy," Janet said. "It was magnificent."

"And it was very nice to get to know you and Rory better. We should talk more often," said Frank.

"Yes, and we hardly got to see your friend John at all. Will he be staying for very long?" Linda asked.

"Well, er, I don't know," the Doctor said.

Linda continued cheerfully, "We've certainly got to have a chance to chat before you go. Janet and I don't meet too many new people since we spend too much time at home and in the garden. What would you say to a neighborhood picnic this Saturday? The weather's supposed to be nice, and the kids always love a chance to go to the park."

"That would be perfect," Janet enthused. "You'll all come, won't you?"

Frank, Julia, and Rory assented. Darren nodded grudgingly, and after some persuading, Carol agreed to join the picnic.

"You'll be there, too, won't you, Mr. Smith?" Stella asked pleadingly.

The Doctor tried to bring himself to disagree, but then relented. "Oh, alright. If you want me to come, I will." He leaned down and whispered to her, "But no hovercrafts, you understand? That has to be a secret."

"I promise," she said, and the Doctor patted her on the head.

"We'll see you all on Saturday!" Linda called as she and Janet walked away at last.

When the other neighbors had departed, the Doctor turned to the Ponds, scowling. "You see what you roped me into? I came over for a brief chat and maybe an interstellar journey, and now I have to spend a Saturday eating fancy sandwiches and making polite conversation."

"Hey, it's your own fault. I certainly didn't ask for a weird alien to show up in the middle of our attempt to make the neighbors think that we're not lunatics with a blue door and an Ood as a housemaid," Amy said.

"Well argued, Pond," the Doctor said. "Well, at least there might be biscuits at the picnic. And I can pop out in the TARDIS to get some jammy dodgers. Or you know what would be even better? I can try out that recipe that I have." He turned and rushed back into the house, leaving Amy and Rory still standing on the doorstep.

"Well, at least even the Doctor can't mess up a picnic," said Rory.

"You never know," Amy said, grabbing Rory's collar and pulling him in for a kiss.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello again! Thank you to everyone who read that last chapter. Not to worry, the whump begins now. Also, I realize there's a lot of characters, but you don't need to know all of them. They're mainly there for plot-related and thematic purposes, which will be clearer later._

* * *

A picnic. That was always a good idea. The Doctor loved picnics, with all the blankets and the rolling around in the grass and the strange little desserts that grandparents always brought. And then there were the dinosaurs, but that was only when he picnicked in the Cretaceous period.

Kids love picnics, too, he reflected as he watched the neighborhood children run about in the grass while the adults set up the blankets and plates. The Doctor calculated how soon he would be able to join the kids in their cavorting without seeming like not a normal adult. Sometimes he wished that he had regenerated into the body of an eight-year-old. Not often, as a small body would make defeating alien invasions difficult and no one would listen to him, but every once in a while looking like a child seemed to appeal.

A trip out to the park for lunch was a great way to bring the neighborhood together. The adults would talk like responsible, boring grownups, the children would play together, and the Doctor would try not to say anything too bizarre until the kids invited him to play with them and he could escape from the conversations. As Frank and Linda discussed the perfect weather, slightly cool but with a bright sun, and everyone ate biscuits that someone had brought, he took off his shoes and wiggled his toes in the grass.

Yes, the Doctor decided, until the aliens showed up a picnic had been a great idea.

* * *

It seemed like the Doctor couldn't go anywhere without attracting a group of hostile, stranded, or confused aliens. They showed up at the grocery store, at weddings, and on vacations. When the Ponds accused him of being a magnet for extraterrestrials, the Doctor replied indignantly that it was never his fault. These things just happened. Amy always snorted in derision.

The aliens, dressed in long black robes with hoods that covered their faces, appeared without warning. They could only have traveled by teleport. Moving stiffly, the three creatures shoved the picnickers into standing in a tight group on the blanket. One of the aliens ran out into the grass to grab the children, who were staring in shock at the proceedings from a few meters away.

As the children were brought in to complete the group, the Doctor looked at the faces of the humans around him. The children were distressed, near tears, by the suddenness of the soon-to-be abduction. Most of the adults wore expressions of wide-eyed fear, the Doctor saw, but the Ponds were looking guiltily excited.

The brief hum of a transporter filled the air, and suddenly, just like that, they were standing on the surface of an alien planet.

Not precisely on the surface, though. They stood on a small transporter pad, a square with a circle incised within it, all built about four feet above the ground.

Around the platform, a desert stretched endlessly, its monotony broken by neither plants nor landforms. It was all one smooth plain, made of coarse sand covered by a layer of jagged obsidian that sparkled dully in the light from the cloudy sky. While the Doctor opened up his arms and spun around, staring up at the sky in fascination, the parents of the group closed their eyes or focused on each other, made skittish by the vast open space.

Amy and Rory, on the other hand, looked exhilarated. The Doctor smiled. As much as the Ponds enjoyed their quiet life on Earth, they were always open to a bit of adventure.

And adventure they were certainly going to get. There were no cars or hovercraft parked near the landing pad, and the Doctor could see no buildings or other possible destinations out in the desert. He skipped over to the edge of the landing pad and reached down to feel the rocks of the planet's surface. They were dark and sharp, small but homogenously covering the ground. The Doctor winced in anticipation of the long walk and wished that he had not removed his shoes at the picnic.

Meanwhile, the people had roused themselves out of their shocked stupors. Rory was clumsily reassuring the children as Amy calmed the adults.

"What's going on?" Frank asked in alarm. "What happened?" His children were pulling at his hands, and he leaned down to pick David up in one arm. His free hand absently rubbed Stella's head.

"Well, it seems to me that we've been transported to another planet by aliens. This certainly doesn't look like Earth," Amy said.

"Are we going to be alright?" Linda asked as she moved over to be closer to Janet.

"Don't worry," Amy said brightly. "They haven't sedated us and they aren't even brandishing guns. As far as alien abductions go, this one is fairly tame."  
The neighbors gaped.

"Emergency meeting, Ponds," the Doctor called out. The three of them circled up on the edge of the transporter pad.

"We need a plan," the Doctor said quietly, glancing around to make certain that none of the others were listening.

"That's new," Rory said.

"Well, I have had a plan before. Remember Demon's Run? That was a wonderful plan."

"Yeah, and it worked out so well," Amy said in a sarcastic tone.

"That's not the point. It was a beautiful plan." He clapped his hands together. "Anyways. First off, let's not tell these three cheerful chaps who are escorting us that I'm a Time Lord and you're time travelers. Best not to tell any of the others, in fact. Second, don't do anything to make our captors angry until we reach our destination. It'd be really inconvenient to be abandoned in the middle of this desert."

"Right. So, Doctor," Amy said, nudging him, "do you have any idea what's going on?"

"Well, it seems that these three gentlemen, or gentlewomen, or gentlebeings are taking us somewhere for some purpose or other. My guess is that they need a group of humans for some reason or other and that they don't know who I am, because otherwise they would have just taken me and left the rest of you here. As for what we are going to do, I'd say that we are going to walk across the planet until we reach a destination. It might be a bit of a trip as I don't see any buildings anywhere, and I don't know why they didn't build this transporter pad at a more convenient location, but we will _definitely_ be going somewhere. To do something. And I'm sure there's a reason." He broke off to scan the air with his sonic screwdriver.

Darren walked over to the Doctor and the Ponds. "What were you three talking about?" he asked. "Do you know something the rest of us don't? You've all been looking pretty excited about this business."

"We just have a bit of a sense of adventure," Amy responded, annoyed.

"Yeah, shut up, Darren," Carol said. "We have to keep some sort of unity, if we're going to survive an alien abduction." She glared at him until he left to stand by Julia, and then Carol walked off to the other side of the transport pad to stare off across the desert.

"She's a bit of a prickly one, isn't she?" the Doctor asked quietly.

"Yeah, she's a bit hard to get along with, but if you get to know her, she can be nice. Sort of. Usually," Rory said.

At that point, the three figures began herding the group off the platform and gestured for them to go in a certain direction. The Doctor didn't know precisely which direction it was because the planet's surface had no identifying features, and he wasn't even sure if this planet had a North and a South.

The Doctor gasped as the sharp volcanic rocks cut into his feet when he jumped off the four-foot-tall platform. When he straightened up, he saw Stella standing on the transport pad with her arms open. He picked her up and set her on the ground, intensely grateful that the parents had forbade the children from removing their footwear at the picnic. All of the children and most of the adults were wearing sturdy rubber-soled shoes.

"Mr. Smith, where are we?" the girl asked, looking around at the desert in interest.

The three creatures pushed the group to begin walking at a reasonable pace. It would seem that they had quite a cross-country journey ahead of them.

The Doctor became aware that all of the humans were waiting expectantly for a reply.

"Well," he said, "Judging by my studies of the recent alien invasions. I'd say we're on a different planet. I can't be quite sure which one it is, but I'm fairly certain that it's not the home planet of the Sycorax or the Daleks or the Cybermen. Studying aliens is one of my hobbies," he explained. "And," he continued, "with the help of my super handy sonic device that I assembled in my shed using an instruction manual and completely normal materials native to the Earth, I think I've figured out why the transport pad is located so inconveniently. The electromagnetic fields of this planet or moon or whatever are variable but generally thick, and the place where we were transported is a weak spot."

"That's all very interesting, John, but what is the plan?" Rory asked. "Are we going to ask them to take us to their leader, or will you sonic your way out of this mess?"

"The sonic can't be used like that. It doesn't work on desert planets or mysterious disguised figures or wood. Or jellyfish, I've tried that. No, we'll just keep walking until we reach where we're supposed to be going." He glanced around. "Maybe I'll try talking to our captors a bit. That should work."

The Doctor turned around to where the black-robed aliens were walking. He tried to see behind the hoods, but he couldn't catch even a glimpse of their faces in the darkness beneath the cloth. "So," the Time Lord said, walking backwards, "what's going on here? Do you think we might take a bit of a break from walking?"

The creatures made no sign of having heard him, so he continued, "You see, it's just that I left my boots back at the picnic, and I'd really like a chance to wrap my feet up in something." He stopped walking for a moment to see what they would do. The figure in the middle pushed him forward. Or backward, from the Doctor's perspective. He stumbled but regained his balance.

"You didn't have to push! A sullen, 'Keep walking,' would have worked just fine. I don't want the children to think that it's okay to bully."

The Doctor turned back to walk forward again and sighed in resignation. It was going to be a long day, and his feet had already begun to leave a trail of bloody prints on the rocky ground. At least they'd be able to find their way back to the transport pad.

* * *

When an hour or so had passed, the younger children started to get tired. Stella ran up to the Doctor again and asked him to carry her. He agreed and hefted the small child up.

"This is no good, is it?" he said. "We can't keep going without talking. What would you say to a story?"

"Yes, please, Mr. Smith," the tired child replied. A story would calm her, along with all of the others in the group, and would help to distract the Doctor from the bone-deep gashes accumulating on his feet.

"What do you like? Tragedy, adventure, comedy? Fairy tale?"

"I like them all," she said with a smile.

"Well, one tragic, adventurous, comedic fairy tale coming up. Let's see, where to start? I know so many adventure stories, all with a bit of comedy worked in, but tragedies? Those are difficult to do right. Ah! I know just where to start. It's going to be a long and complicated one, though, so you'd better not fall asleep." He took a breath and began.

* * *

_There was once a very old man with a very young face, and he lived in a magic blue box. He was no older than Earth's oldest redwood, yet when the newborn sun took his first breath and opened his eyes, the first thing that he saw was the man leaning out of his blue box, smiling. The last sensation that the Moon ever felt before time ran out and all of creation was swallowed by darkness was the crunch of his boots across her skin. He had lived only as many years as a dozen tortoises, a heartbeat or a flick of the wrist in the lifetime of the Earth, and yet he had greeted, loved, and saved ten thousand civilizations. After he waved goodbye, the people of each planet worked his name into their language, so that all creatures share this one word. When the people ask for knowledge or healing, or when the sky turns black with destroying invaders and they fear that the world is ending, the name that all people speak is "Doctor."_

_ Time isn't steady. Not every event is fixed in place. There are some things that must always be the same, of course. This one little girl must die of the plague, this king must make a fatal decision that decides the course of the world, the young woman in the rundown apartment must have toast for breakfast. These points are fixed, but everything around them can change. The girl will die of the plague, but perhaps first she will be told that life will go on, that the sickness will eventually wither from the planet and no others will die from it. Or perhaps she will never know that. Maybe her death will inspire her family to scour the world for a cure, or maybe they will devote their lives to exterminating the merchants who brought the plague to the village. The fixed and the changeable events are written onto the universe in a four-dimensional tapestry of time and space. No one can see this fabric, and no one can travel through time to observe the fixed events and to change the things that are in flux, except for the Time Lords of Gallifrey._

_ There was a dark period in the timeline of the ever-evolving universe, when the Doctor didn't yet exist. A young Time Lord named Theta lived within his species' ancient and encrusted society. The whole race was corrupt and unbending in its views, the society stuck in a never-ending cycle of death and of life that was too structured to be truly called living. The Time Lords were the most advanced race in the universe, yet they never shared their abilities with other species, never offered aid or assistance to planets less developed than their own. Theta saw this and wept, but one night he looked up at the sky with tears in his eyes and saw the beauty of the stars. He decided that he would leave Gallifrey and be the healer that his people refused to be. He knew that there was ugliness in the universe, and that much of that cruelty was concentrated on his home planet, but that the good things far outshone the bad. So he stole a blue time ship and ran away, and he became the Doctor._

* * *

The Doctor continued his story until David fell asleep in Frank's arms and Stella started to yawn. Then the group conversed comfortably, talking of events back home and music preferences and anything but the strange situation they were in. No buildings or landforms could be seen yet in the distance, but after seven or eight hours of walking, when the humans were shaking from dehydration, hunger, and exhaustion, and the Doctor from slight blood loss, the sky began to darken. Forty-five minutes after that, the three mysterious figures abruptly stopped walking.

"Well, it's about time," Amy said, and Frank set David down on the ground.

Rory patted the boy's head distractedly, "I'm concerned about everyone becoming dehydrated. Do you think those three will give us some water if we ask?" Rory said. The Doctor didn't reply. "Are you doing alright, Doctor, er, John?"

"What?" the Doctor asked, distracted by his close observation of the movements of their captors. "Oh, yes, just fine. Dehydration's not a problem, unless I go for more than a week without water." He continued to watch the three creatures as they brushed the sharp rocks off the ground, leaving soft, sandy dirt in a circular region about fifteen feet in diameter.

"It seems that we're stopping for the night," he said, and one of the robed figures pulled a large container out of the bag on its back.

"What's that thing?" Amy asked.

"It looks like a gourd," Janet said. "At least on Earth, gourds are large fruits, sort of like squashes, that turn brown and hard when they're dry. If you take the seeds out, they're hollow and fairly waterproof, so Native Americans and Romans and other civilizations used them like water bottles. See that thing sticking out of the top? It must be like a cork." She paused for a second and then added, "Of course, this isn't exactly Earth, so I could be completely wrong."

It seemed that she wasn't far off in her guess, as another one of the three pulled several cups out of its bag and held them out to be filled by water from the gourd-like container. It handed the cups out.

The humans gratefully accepted their cups of water and, exhausted, settled onto the smooth ground of the circle. Husbands and wives held hands and children snuggled up to their parents, all seeking comfort from the strange and frightening situation. Finding safety and reassurance in closeness, in an arm wrapped around a child's back, the Doctor thought with a smile. How very human.

The Doctor settled down gingerly in the circle, taking care not to let his bloody feet come into contact with the sandy ground.

But as he stretched out his legs, Linda caught sight of what had once been the soles of his feet. Her eyes widened in horror at the bloody mass of torn muscle and exposed bone. "John," she gasped. "Your feet…"

"They'll be fine," he assured her hurriedly, trying and failing to tuck his feet out of the sight of the rest of the group. "They'll be almost healed by tomorrow. And I've had far worse than this. Really, have you ever been in a Chameleon Arch? Ever regenerated? I'll be perfectly alright." The children looked as if they were about to cry, and Rory was frowning, preparing to enter full nurse mode. "Everything will be alright," the Doctor continued to Stella, who was beginning to sniffle. Distressed tears were seeping form David's eyes, and Jordan looked slightly sick. "I'll borrow Linda's scarf and Nurse Williams here will wrap up my feet. Everything will be better in the morning. Come and give me a hug, you two."

The children scampered over and wrapped their arms around his neck. Jordan followed, standing slightly to the side. "We'll sort it all out and go home and finish our picnic," the Doctor said. "And do you know why I know everything is going to be all right? Because the Doctor is coming to save us. It may take a while, and then a while longer for you to realize he's here, but saving children is what he does. He won't let us down."

The kids stared at him with wide, excited eyes before he shooed them away to their parents.

"Silly Raggedy Man," Amy admonished him gently as Rory accepted the scarf from Linda. "What were you thinking, going to an alien planet without shoes?"

"Well, I hardly knew we were going to be abducted in the park. And you're the one who went to Wales in a short skirt in the early spring."

"You said we were going to Rio!"

"Quiet, you two," Rory said. "Doctor, I'm going to wash your feet off with this water and then bandage your feet with the scarf. Does that sound alright? You don't have any weird anatomical quirks I should know about, do you?"

"No, Rory, no eyes in my toes or allergies to water. Just use my water instead of yours. I don't need it, remember? Superior physiology." He flexed his thin arms dramatically.

Amy snorted and Rory tried to retain his professional composure. "Fine. As long as you take at least a sip of my water. You left a fair amount of blood scattered over the plane we just crossed."

The Doctor acquiesced, and Rory used the small cup of liquid to wash out the dirt and rock fragments. He then tore the scarf in two and, in the fading light, began to wrap it around the Doctor's feet. The Doctor failed to hold back a light whimper as Rory tightened the bandages.

At last, the unusually exhausted Time Lord settled down on his back in the small circle of soft dirt, scooting over until his shoulder lightly touched Amy's. He was just about to slip into a brief five-hour healing coma when David whined quietly that he was hungry and glanced hopefully up at the three figures that were surrounding the makeshift camp. They made no response.

"Of course!" the Doctor said, shooting up into a sitting position. "I nearly forgot. I've got a couple of snacks in my pocket that we can share around." He started to root about in his jacket pocket, pulling out a packet of biscuits, six apples, and some purple alien fruit. "Here, Ponds, hand these out. No one should be allergic to those," he said, referring to the purple fruits. "Probably."

He handed the pile of food to Amy, laid back down, and fell into a healing coma immediately.

* * *

_Review? Please? It would make me very happy. (And it might make the next chapter come sooner.)_


	3. Chapter 3

_Salvete, omnes! I hope you enjoy this chapter. There's a brief character summary at the end, if you need it. Also, please excuse the random science that accidentally appeared in the middle. It just pops up unexpectedly in the narrative._

* * *

After precisely five hours, the Doctor transitioned easily to a state of natural sleep. Comas helped to heal injuries and sicknesses, but they were not restful, and the Doctor did not want to be entirely exhausted during the following day's walk. After minor blood loss and a long cross-country trek, he needed a good two hours of sleep. As the Doctor slipped between stages of unconsciousness, he turned onto his side and woke Amy from a light slumber.

Amy turned her head to one side look at her husband, curled on his side towards her and breathing quietly, and to the other side to see the Doctor's tweed-covered back. She sighed. If it wasn't for the hard, sandy ground, she would have slept deeply, sandwiched between her timey-wimey family on the surface of an alien planet.

She stared up at the sky, with its constellations indistinguishable from those of Earth for a girl who had spent her childhood nights searching for a blue box in the darkened garden rather than watching the stars, and she was lulled into fuzzy half-sleep by the warm night air.

After minutes or hours drifting in a reassuring feeling of belonging and of anticipation for the much-missed adventure, Amy's eyes were caught by a streak of movement. A small bird-like creature, the first sign of life that she had seen, was flying across the not-so-dark-anymore sky in the direction they had been walking. She smiled and, at last, fell asleep.

* * *

Amy swatted away a gently prodding hand. "Amy," Rory was saying, "It's time to get up now."

She opened her eyes to a sky that was not noticeably lighter than it had been when she had fallen asleep. "You know what I hate? I hate it when you fall asleep five minutes before your alarm goes off and then have to go through the whole waking up process again. Could those idiots in the anonymous black suits not have waited until it was a little brighter outside?"

Rory cringed at the cranky anger of his tired wife. "Sorry, Amy, but I think you'd prefer me to wake you rather than our captor people… things." The three figures were lightly kicking at the sides of the humans who had yet to rise. "It looks like we're going to set off now."

The Doctor, still lying on the ground, stretched his thin arms over his head. "That we are," he said and sat up to unwrap the bandages from his foot. He wiggled his toes at Rory, showing off the new skin bearing only pink scars. "See? Told you they'd be better in the morning."

"Yeah, Doctor, but what about once we start walking again? The new skin is soft and fragile, and it'll be cut more easily than before. You should take my shoes." Rory knelt down to unlace his boots.

"No, no, no. If those shiny little rocks cut your feet, you won't be able to walk for a week. Give me two days or a five-hour healing coma and I'm just fine. In any case, we seem to be going now."

The three alien creatures herded them out of the circle of sand, and the Doctor stepped lightly onto the shards of obsidian, carefully keeping his expression free of pain. "Now, where are the children? I haven't finished telling them that fairytale."

* * *

That day's travel was harder, though the three figures did hand out cups of water around midday, and the Doctor distributed satsumas to the children from his endless pockets. By the time afternoon arrived on the planet, the starving adults were walking on shaky legs, and most of the children were being carried. The Doctor's red footprints had started to become connected with dripping trails of blood.

As a conversation about football teams withered into silence, the Doctor placed Stella on the ground to let her walk. "Do you want to hear more of the fairytale now?"

"Of course," she responded.

"Good. But I've got to warn you, there's a bit of a sad part coming up."

"That's fine," Stella said. "I've seen _Bambi_. That one's really sad."

"Yeah, it doesn't get much sadder than that. Alright, here it is," the Doctor said.

* * *

_The Doctor traveled for hundreds of years, healing people and planets. But he was young when he left his home world, and he couldn't have imagined that the most miraculous part of his adventures would be the people he shared them with. There were many people whom he invited to travel with him, almost all of them brilliant humans. After he had lived eight lives and seen all of the universe's marvels, he still traveled, just to show his companions the stars and to keep being the healer he had promised to be._

_But the Doctor's peaceful, if madly exciting, life was interrupted when the Time Lords and their enemies, the Daleks, became locked in a war that expanded until the whole universe was involved. The Doctor was called back to his home, and he abandoned his renegade name to become a warrior. He fought honorably at first, then without morals, and finally, when it was the only choice left, he destroyed his planet. The Last Great Time War ended when both the Time Lords and the Daleks were destroyed in a blaze of light, leaving the Doctor the last of his species._

_When it was all over, the Doctor was filled with even more sadness and regret than he had felt back at home all those years ago, when he'd watched his people ignore the suffering on other planets. He'd pledged years ago to heal the problems of the universe, and instead he'd killed billions of people with the push of a button. At last, still reeling with guilt, the Doctor decided to go on one last adventure to see whether he could still save some people and show others how wonderful the universe truly is. And whether he could still believe that life is brilliant._

* * *

"John," Amy interrupted, "do you see that?" She pointed to a flock of three birds flying above their heads.

"Wildlife! We must be getting closer to our destination." He whipped out his sonic screwdriver with one hand and pointed it at the birds as they passed. He frowned.

"What is it?"

"Oh, nothing, Pond. Just some unusual readings. I'll tell you later." He turned back to the little girl in his arms.

* * *

_The Doctor took a deep breath and opened the door. He looked out. His blue box had taken him into space, in an orbit around a green, living planet that circled a red-orange sun. The flames of the star reached out not into blackness, but instead overshadowed the bright colors of a star birth. The Doctor grinned in pure happiness: His ship had taken him to a place of color and creation. She believed that he could go on in life become a healer again._

_But then the star in front of him began to shrink, collapsing in upon itself. The Doctor's grin faded. He ran back inside the blue box and used its magic to hold the sun steady. The power of the magic box would keep the sun from collapsing and exploding, but it wouldn't hold forever. In just over a week, the box would be drained of energy, and the Doctor would either have to leave, and abandon the green planet below to its death, or use his box to absorb the energy from the unstable star. Overwhelmed by power, the blue box would explode forever, an undying replacement for the old star. The Doctor's choices were life for himself and death to whomever lived on the planet, or self-sacrifice._

_It was not a decision that he could make in a few minutes, so he decided to give himself a week. He would spend seven days on the planet below, and at the end he would decide whether to live or die._

_He frowned, and he gazed fondly at his box with ancient eyes. "Choose somewhere to land. And make it a good place, Old Girl. This might be our last adventure."_

* * *

The Doctor stopped his story abruptly and placed Stella down. He crouched down to the ground. "You're a little beauty, you are," he said, hopping up again as one of the robed creatures walked up to push him into motion.

"Are you alright, John?" Linda asked.

"What? Oh, yes, perfectly fine. Brilliant, actually. Just look at this!" He held up a minute sprig. "It's a plant, the first one that I've seen on this whole planet, actually. Wonderful little succulent, this baby is. Remarkably similar to those on Earth, with its thick leaves to conserve water. It's a pioneer plant," he added. "First, plants like this guy here, ones that can live straight on rocks, live on the inhospitable ground, and when they die, they decompose into little bits of organic matter. They keep that up until there's enough soil for slightly bigger plants, and then for average sized ones, and then for bushes and vines and trees. It's a big cycle of life and death and life, and at the end of it, the desert's been transformed into a forest with deep, rich soil. Beautiful! And it all starts with this little guy."

The others looked taken aback by the Doctor's unexpected enthusiasm. "I… see," said Frank.

"Well, enough of sciency things." He clapped his hands together. "You all probably want to hear the rest of the story." His comment stirred up a conversation among the humans about fairytales and who should be carrying Stella. As the others talked, the Doctor turned to Amy and whispered, "You see what this means? We'll soon come upon an area that's more hospitable to life, and there we'll no doubt arrive at our destination and discover why these three gentlebeings have gone through all the trouble of hauling us across the desert."

"They'd better have a good reason, 'cause I'm fed up with walking across this wasteland and being woken up early by those three."

"Yes," he muttered, "If they don't explain themselves, they'll have to face the wrath of Amelia Pond. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"Hey," she said and hit him on the arm.

He bopped her lightly on the nose. Laughing lightly, Amy linked arms with him and they continued across the desert as the Doctor again picked up the train of the story.

* * *

_With a groan, the magic blue box landed on the planet. The Doctor walked over to the door. He hoped it was someplace uninhabited. He didn't yet want to look upon the people he might abandon, and he didn't want to see people nearly identical to the billions that he had killed just a short time ago._

_She had not disappointed him. The Doctor opened her doors to reveal a wild countryside, all gentle hills covered with grasses and small wildflowers. He walked outside, feeling the warm air wash over his skin. Behind him, just as he told it to, the box disappeared to return to its place in space, holding the sun's fires in check until she returned the next day._

_He walked for some time, enjoying the fragrant loneliness. All the while, his hearts ached within his chest, tempering his peace with sorrow and regret._

_As the Doctor passed a thorny bramble of flowers, a girl, young and pretty and with wild hair, ran into him, knocking him to the ground. He stood up and helped her to her feet._

_"What's wrong?" he asked. "Why are you running?"_

_"I am being chased by a monster," she said. "It calls itself Death."_

_The Doctor looked behind her and saw a black cloud lurching across the countryside. It had no concrete form, but out of the wisps reached smoky arms ending in pointed fingers. A skeletal head appeared out of the blackness and opened its mouth to speak. "I am decay, I am life's last gasping breath. I am the end. Fear me, I am Death," it intoned._

_The Doctor grabbed the girl's small hand, and they fled across the meadows._

_The Doctor saw a winding stream ahead and pulled the girl toward it, saying, "Some cultures say that ghosts can't cross water. I've never met an actual ghost myself, but hey, you never know. It's worth a try." After they hopped across the stream, the two of them ran a short distance and then turned around to see what the monster would do._

_The black cloud crossed over the water without slowing. As the Doctor and the girl stood watching, the creature spoke. "I am regret for lives lost and blood spilt. I am consuming, soul-crushing. I am Guilt."_

_This time, the girl grabbed the Doctor's hand and pulled him along. "Come this way," she said. "The top of the hill is always very windy. Maybe it will blow the ghost away."_

_"Clever. Very clever," the Doctor said. The pair climbed quickly through the thick grass to the summit of the hill. The wind whipped their clothing around, the girl's golden hair flying in the gust._

_But as before, the monster continued after them, unaffected._

* * *

It was good, Amy reflected, that the Doctor believed that they would be arriving at their unknown destination soon. Their story-teller was walking wobbily, tripping over his feet every once in a while. Exhaustion, hunger, and blood loss were making him even clumsier than usual. She wouldn't put it past the Doctor to fall and break something, that hopeless Raggedy Man.

The other adults were becoming worried as well, casting concerned looks at the trail of red footprints that stretched out behind them and scrutinizing the Doctor's face for signs of how much discomfort he was in. Rory was now carrying Stella, and pauses in the storytelling were becoming more frequent as the Doctor grew increasingly tired.

"John," Linda asked during one of the breaks, "what is that off in the distance, would you say?" She gestured towards the horizon, which was becoming blurry and indistinct, as if obscured by clouds.

"Oh, it's probably just some fog," he responded. He was beginning to allow his mind to gradually shut itself down in order to conserve energy and dull the pain in his feet.

"We're in a desert, John. There can't be fog," Amy said.

"What? Oh. Of course." He shook his head to pull himself out of the mindless state. "There can't be fog in a desert without a nearby water source: a sea or a forest or recent rain. There's been no precipitation here in weeks, judging by the wrinkled leaves of that plant we found earlier. So that means either we're coming upon a body of water and we're going to be put on boats and shipped off to somewhere, or we'll soon arrive in a considerably more lush area, with a considerably higher chance of being populated." He stopped speaking and began to jump about bizarrely, leaning from side to side and turning his head. "I'd say that fog's about two miles away. Well, more precisely its five pi over eight miles, but it never hurts to round. Except when nuclear reactors are involved. That really didn't go well."

"What's a nuclear reactor?" Jordan asked.

"Well, have you ever heard of atoms, dear?" Janet began.

As Janet explained nuclear fission in simplified terms, the Doctor wandered to the back of the group to talk quietly to Amy and Rory.

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better," Rory said.

"I've always been fine, Mr. Pond. Just went into a bit of a mental shutdown to focus on healing my feet. Gallifreyan biology is a wonderful thing. All it takes is a cessation of conscious mental functions to focus the mind and vestigial regeneration energy on the process of knitting tissues back together."

"Right," said Amy. "But what on earth were you doing back there? You looked like one of those pet birds that turns its head upside down when it looks at you."

"Cockatoos, you mean. Well, I'm a Time Lord, you know, and Time Lords have a lot to do with time. We, or just me now, can see in a sort of fourth dimension. Fixed points, the passage of time, the turn of the universe, all those sort of things. You know how you sense distance by the disparity of distance between your eyes, or how quickly trees at the edge of the road move when you drive past them, compared to the pterodactyls in the distance? Sorry, bad example, that was just the alternative world that had those. Remember, with Churchill and all the creepy eye patch people? Anyways, I was doing the same distance-judging thing, except using the spin of the planet and little ripples in time and all that as markers. It's easy, really, once you get the hang of it. I just don't do it very often because concentrating on the fabric of time can make a person quite dizzy, you know."

"Yeah. Of course," Rory said.

After Janet finished explaining atoms to Jordan, making use of a metaphor involving apples and pears, the group lapsed into silence. A moment later, Stella pulled on the Doctor's jacket and impatiently insisted that he continue telling the fairytale.

"Ah, yes," the Doctor said. "Where was I? The big monster had just foiled the second plan of the girl and the Doctor."

* * *

_The cloud of smoke continued over the hill and towards the two people. "I am dying planets that don't even have a prayer. I am forlorn hopelessness. I am Despair," it moaned._

_"It's right," the girl said to the Doctor. "We don't have a chance." She stopped running and sat down on the ground._

_"What are you doing?" the Doctor cried._

_The cloud of black smoke was approaching quickly, but the girl just smiled calmly. She reached down to pick a flower from the grass and turned it around in her fingers, staring at the blossom. "We have no hope of escaping from the monster," she said. "So I'll wait for it here, with the flowers."_

_The Doctor's hearts swelled with sorrow and happiness. The little girl was so brave and loving, so brilliant, even in the face of death. He patted her on the head. "It'll be alright," he said. "We might die, but you know what? These flowers and grasses and the blue sky will always be here. I've seen the future of this planet, and I know that everything will turn out just fine. This isn't the end of the world. A thousand years after our deaths, the matter that makes us up will have been transformed into little children and the feathers of birds and a thousand roses. They'll always be a sun in the sky, and life will always continue."_

_He plucked a flower from the bramble beside him and sat down next to the girl as the shadow of the monster covered them both. The Doctor focused his eyes on the delicate petals covered in dewdrops._

_The smoke creature reached out a skeletal hand and spoke. "I am sadness. I am…" It paused. "I am happiness. I am hope and beauty. I am brilliance of spirit, and I… I am free."_

_In an instant, the smoke evaporated into the air, leaving behind a tall woman in a flowing dress. The black, bony features had been replaced by pale alien skin spotted lightly with the lavender colors of the flowers around her._

_The girl looked up, transfixed, and the Doctor stood to walk closer, the flower still in his hand. "You are beautiful," he said in wonder. "You're an alien, of course. Must have some sort of psychic connection or power, am I right? You were trapped in the fears of the people of this world, just as you reflected this girl's terror of death and my guilt. But when the girl accepted her death and opened her soul to be filled with beauty, the small relief was enough to let you escape from the cycle of fear."_

_The woman nodded. "That is all true. I came here by accident and became trapped, but now I am able to leave. Goodbye." She waved and dissolved into a breeze that swept upward, into the sky, and filled the air with the scent of flowers._

_The girl and the Doctor smiled, and the Time Lord held out a welcoming hand. "One more little trip? I'll walk you back to your home." The girl nodded and took his hand. With a gentle cough, she led him across the countryside and to a hill that overlooked a village._

_The Doctor's hearts twisted when they reached the top of the hill. He had seen this town before. He knew it by the outline of the buildings and by the chickens that roamed the streets, and he knew what would happen to its inhabitants. The village was even now ensnared by the plague, and within a month nearly everyone would be dead. The girl beside him coughed again, and he realized that she was already infected. She had lived through the encounter with the empath, but she would soon die all the same, and he could do nothing about it._

_The Doctor placed his hands on her shoulders and kneeled down to speak to her. "You'll be alright, won't you?" he said. "Your family and friends may get sick, but you'll still be as brave as you were today?"_

_She nodded and smiled. "Of course I will. No matter what happens, in a thousand years I'll be a field of flowers."_

_She skipped off down the hill with a final goodbye, and the Doctor watched her go with eyes full of tears. Once the girl was out of sight, he fell backward to lay in the grass. He was crying, but at the same time the flowers and the vivacity of the little girl had filled him with life. He lay there, smelling the fragrant blossoms, until his magic blue box arrived to take him away._

* * *

When he finished telling the section of the story, Julia stepped back to walk in line with the Doctor and the Ponds. "What was it that you do, John?" she asked. "You mentioned it the other day, back when we were on Earth." She giggled slightly hysterically at the strangeness of her last remark.

"I'm a sort of a scientist-engineer-historian-traveler thingy. Nothing very concrete. I just travel around and help with problems. That's how I met Amy, actually. She was having some trouble with a crack in her wall, and I sorted out the issue."

"Really?" Linda said from in front. "What other sorts of jobs do you take on?"

"I've done some odds and ends. I helped with a fish problem in Venice a bit ago. And then there were some technical difficulties at an acid plant, and some excavations at Stonehenge. That sort of thing." The Doctor was uncomfortable with creating so many flimsy lies. "Would you look at that! We're almost at the edge of the fog."

Plants were beginning to appear beneath their feet, and the Doctor hopped from one patch of vegetation to another, relishing the feeling of a surface that did not slice his feet. Mats of the succulent that the Doctor had seen earlier were dotted along the ground, and viny bushes with circular leaves tangled across the rocks.

The day grew darker swiftly as the group neared the wall of mist. Tendrils of fog swirled around their feet. The three black-garbed escorts changed position, moving into a more secure formation with two at the front and one in back.

"Interesting," the Doctor muttered.

"What is it, John?" Frank asked.

"See the way those three are spaced? It's a classic security formation. I'd say there's something in that fog that they're afraid of."

The little group instinctively drew in closer, parents grabbing their children by the hand even as they put down the little ones, afraid of tripping and dropping them in the gloom. The Doctor stared forward, but he could see nothing through the dense barrier of water vapor.

"Everyone, hold hands," Rory commanded as the fog began to thicken. "I don't want anyone to trip on the vines and scrape their knees."

The Doctor began flailing his arms around, searching for Amy.

"Over here, Raggedy Man," she hissed, grabbing his hand.

"Sorry, it's a bit hard to see. But isn't this exciting! Who knows what could be on the other side of the fog. There could be a forest, or a cliff, or a whole booming civilization. Or there could be more desert, encircling the whole planet, and our captors could force us to walk forever, until we die of old age or starvation."

"That's not exciting at all."

"I have to admit, that last part got a bit dark. But still! There's an infinity of possibilities. Isn't that at least interesting?"

"Of course it is, Doctor. Would I have agreed to travel with you if I didn't like mysteries?" She tugged on Rory's hand, urging him to walk faster.

The others, with their thick-soled shoes, didn't notice the difference, but the Doctor felt the vegetation beneath his feet change gradually from tough desert plants to stringy, dew-covered grasses.

The fog was all-encompassing, so thick that everyone was effectively blind. They could see nothing but the blue-gray water vapor; other people, themselves, even the difference between the sky and the ground were invisible. They walked forward at a snaillike pace, ever so often being nudged back on course by one of the captors, but even so, the line of linked humans buckled as Carol tripped and was helped back to her feet. The Doctor silently congratulated himself on not being the first to fall, though he knew that the information, the contours of the ground and texture of grass blades snagging his toes, that he gained from the touch of his bare feet against the ground was the only thing keeping him from falling. Most of the sensation in his feet had been swallowed up by flaming agony from hours spent walking across obsidian shards, but there were a few nerves that still condescended to transmit a signal other than pain.

After several minutes of walking, the long grasses on the ground gave way to tender young plants, and then to leaf litter and moss. The Doctor closed his eyes, concentrating on the way that the sounds of the stumbling group bounced back at him. He'd spent a week with Helen Keller once, pretending to be blind, and she'd given him all sorts of tips on seeing without sight. Now, he listened to the minute echoes in the air and concluded that the group was no longer out in the open; they were surrounded on all sides by irregular, muffling objects. Based on the large, decomposing leaves that covered the ground, he guessed the objects were some sort of tree.

Gradually, the mist dissipated, and the group began to spot large forms looming out of the grey air.

"Are those trees?" David asked, once the shapes became clearer. He nearly ran into Linda as he stared up through the fog, and Frank lifted him up into his arms.

"It would seem so," Janet said, and she leaned down to pick up a handful of leaf litter from the ground. "This is interesting. These leaves are similar to those of Earth's plants. Same basic design, evolved for the same function, but this planet's evolution took a few different turns. The veins are branching, but they're much more orderly than our leaves' veins. Strange."

"Ah, perfect, glorious Janet! Leave it to a scientist to be intrigued by decaying alien leaves! Wonderful. Though you are right, these leaves are very orderly," the Doctor said, interested.

A few steps later, the group of humans and assorted aliens emerged from the last of the mist. They glanced around before looking upwards and gaping in surprise.

The three figures had led them into a massive rainforest, with trees as thick as the youngest children were tall arching up into the canopy. For the first fifteen feet up, the trees were blue-grey and smooth, their trunks irregularly shaped. After that, mosses began to sprout on the bark, followed by small plants. By the point where the trees began to divide into broad, gently curving branches, the trees' surfaces were thick with epiphytic plants holding on by thick roots or other means. Drooping fern-like plants perched in the spaces where branches split off from the trunk. Brightly colored rosettes clung to the bark, looking like flowers sprouting directly from the branches. Amy stared curiously at a yellow-orange plant with long spoon-shaped leaves before determining that it was in fact bouncing rhythmically, perhaps luring insects into its reach. Other plants were graced with irregular spots and splotches of lichens that glowed lightly in the darkness of the rainforest.

"Well, that is curious," Janet muttered, intrigued at the contrast in life between the canopy and the forest floor. The trees' wide leaves and their clustering epiphytes blocked enough light from the clouded sky that only delicate mosses could survive on the ground.

With a light nudge at the trailing members, the figures at the back directed them to move faster, nearly at a trot. The unknown aliens seemed to be getting jumpy at being out in the open for so long. The Doctor looked as far as he could into the trees, but he could see nothing suspicious to justify the captors' fear. There were no claw marks from large carnivores on the trunks; nothing moved furtively along the ground or across the gently sloping branches. And above, birds chirped lightly, insectivorous plants continued their gentle swooshing, and the occasional glimpse of grey fur could be seen from small creatures slipping among the leaves.

The group continued at its quick pace for only a brief time, though the short minutes were long enough for the hurrying to twist up the Doctor's feet, causing him to stumble. The refreshing sights of a new and unknown world were no longer enough to distract him from the deep pain in his feet, and he began again to dissociate his mind from his body, drifting numbly among his thoughts as his legs continued automatically to carry him along.

The foggy state of his mind was enough to keep him from observing the hilly grove that they were approaching. When the two leading figures stopped abruptly, the Ponds, grasping his arms from either side, stopped him from running into Frank's back.

"Would you look at that," Frank said, gesturing at the double football-field sized mound, covered in trees, that rose up behind a door made from woven saplings. "It's something right out of Swiss Family Robinson or Star Wars."

"Don't be ridiculous, Frank," the Doctor said, returning to his senses, "Those both had treehouses in the forest. This place is built underground, inside this big hill. A much better plan, if you ask me."

"Yeah," Carol said. "It's much more easily defendable."

"What makes you say that?" Rory asked.

"This lot has been hurrying us since it got clear enough to see again. They were perfectly laid back, in a creepily unresponsive way, when we were out in that desert. So there must be something in the forest that is hunting us."

Alarmed, David wrapped his arms more tightly around Frank's neck. Stella stepped closer to Linda's legs, and Linda patted her reassuringly on the head.

"And if there is something out there, we'll deal with it. Besides, we're soon to be nice and relatively safe inside that big mound," the Doctor replied.

Something moved within the darkness behind the latticed door. As the door inched open, the small group caught the first real glimpse of the aliens that had stolen them from Earth.

_Thank you for reading! I always appreciate reviews, of course. Just a hint._

_So, in case you're having a hard time keeping up with all of the Ponds' neighbors, here's a brief summary:_

_Linda and Janet: two older sisters. Janet is a retired physicist with a bad hand_

_Frank: father of Stella and Michael_

_Julia and Darren: parents of Jordan. Darren is an unloving father. You shouldn't like him_

_Carol: woman in her late twenties/early thirties. She lives alone and can be grumpy._

_Also, if you were worrying, this will most certainly __**not**__ end up as Doctor/OC. The neighbors have their narrative purposes, but romance is not one of them._


	4. Chapter 4

Salvete, omnes! Sorry about that sort-of-a-cliffhanger last chapter and for the long wait. Things were happening. And thank you for reading. (Just a hint? Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Gratias tibi ago.)

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The man standing inside the door was short, perhaps a few inches under five feet tall. His human-like features were aged enough that he looked as if he were in his fifties, with light wrinkles showing on his pale grey-green skin. He wore a short sleeved robe-like garment that was embroidered in oranges and reds and that reached down to a half foot above his bare feet. Peering out of the partially opened door, he motioned for them to enter quickly.

Once the group of humans and one Time Lord had passed through the woven door and through a sturdy inner door carved from a single block of wood, the creature leading them motioned for silence. The three black-robed escorts turned down a different hallway and left silently. The other alien skipped nimbly through the underground corridors despite his advanced age, the thirteen off-worlders following.

Because of his short stature, a quick trot for the robed alien was a mild walking pace for the older humans, and the members of the small group had plenty of time to look around.

The Doctor whistled in appreciation at the rounded walls of the hallway. Many of the surfaces of the underground structure were made from pounded soil, but the smooth dirt of the walls was interspersed with light-colored tree roots arching elegantly into the floor. The Doctor leaned by one as he passed, scratching at the wood with a thumbnail to reveal a green interior. The roots were alive, still connected to the trees above, and had been painstakingly coaxed into forming the structure of the compound. The process of guiding the roots into the proper position in the wall must have taken decades, if not centuries.

Meanwhile, as the Doctor considered the forethought and precise architecture of the captors, the short man had reached a destination. He opened a door on the side of the corridor and wordlessly ushered the group in.

As the alien closed the door and faced his captives, the Doctor excitedly waited for the explanation that had been so long in coming. Why had this planet's inhabitants kidnapped a bunch of ordinary humans? What was the dangerous presence in the forest? Why had there not been a faster mode of transportation waiting for them at the transport pad?

The short man opened his mouth and uttered a string of gibberish.

"Blast it!" the Doctor yelled. "Why didn't I think of that? Idiot! The TARDIS is back on Earth, so there's nothing to translate their language for us."

The neighbors stared in wide-eyed confusion following the Doctor's outburst, and the Ponds frowned in concern.

"Well, I can always try other languages. Do you know how inconvenient that would be if we had to learn their whole language before we could even communicate?" He turned back to the robed man. "Do you speak Judoon?" he asked in that language. "Akhatenian? Raxacoricofallapatorian? Silurian? Ood? Zygonian? Malletorian? Finnish –" He broke off as the man nodded vigorously.

"Je nederlands spreekt?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't understand that language," the alien said in Malletorian, "but I can speak this one quite well."

"Ah, wonderful!" The Doctor turned to the humans and switched back to English. "He speaks Malletorian, the language of a planet called Malletor that's a few hundred thousand light years from the Milky Way galaxy. Malletorian will become the common language used by the civilized universe in a few million years. It's not even a particularly easy language for everyone to learn. They chose it in a raffle, would you believe? Now, to clear up a little matter." He clapped his hands together. "The Ponds already know it, but I'm not entirely human. Not human at all, actually. I'm a Messalinian from the planet Messaline. Great place, I loved it, but everyone spent too much time underground." The small lie would hold until he was certain that it was safe to let everyone know that he was a Time Lord.

Carol and Frank gaped as Linda and Janet glanced knowingly at each other.

"Good. I see that some of you guessed I wasn't human," he said to the sisters. "Anyways, now that that's over with, I think I know a way to fix our communication issue. I'm a little bit telepathic, so if you just let me touch my hands to your foreheads in a very _Star Trek_-ish way, I can link the speech-processing and producing regions of your brain to the ones in mine, and voila! You can understand and speak Malletorian." No one looked enthusiastic at the prospect of mental invasion, so the Doctor continued. "Who's first? Rory?"

"Yeah, alright Doctor," Rory said, stepping up to him.

The Doctor placed his hands on either side of Rory's head and closed his eyes. Each regeneration was different when it came to telepathy. Ten was good at it, and Seven was superb. Three not so much. He sighed in relief as his Eleventh persona snuck into Rory's mind with only a few mental stumbles. Once he had a firm foothold, he relaxed slightly. Rory may not be as assertive and inventive as his wife, but he had a remarkably caring mind, soothing to float around in.

The Doctor pulled himself back to his current task and easily make a mental link between his mind and Rory's. The connection would join a small part of their minds, allowing what Rory heard and spoke to be processed in the Doctor's brain, with its excellent linguistic capabilities. As long as the Doctor was either awake or naturally sleeping, Rory would be able to communicate with the planet's inhabitants.

After checking that the link was secure, the Doctor withdrew from the nurse's mind. Rory nodded at him, relieved that the process hadn't involved the Doctor sifting through memories.

"That wasn't so bad," Rory said in Malletorian.

The Doctor gave an apologetic smile. "Yes, see, that's one problem with it. _Everything_ that you say will translated into their language." He looked at Amy. "Who's next?"

"Alright, I'll do it. But if I end up with a craving for bow ties, I'm not going to be pleased," Amy said.

One by one, the Doctor made mental attachments between his brain and those of the eleven other humans. At the end, his mind was spinning, burdened by its assumption of the tasks of a dozen other brains, and he was reeling from the shock of quickly entering and leaving so many minds.

"I'm glad that's over with," he said at last. "Now, shall we get on with business? I'm John, by the way. John Smith. This is Amy, Rory, Linda and Janet, Carol, Frank, David, Stella, and Jordan."

"I am Doriel, the leader of the people here," said the little man, understood at last by all of the humans. "We are called the Orphians. I know that you came from far away, from across the midnight skies beyond the clouds, and that you must be very confused, and I will try to explain. We are in trouble, and it is the law of our ancient knowledge that if ever our race is in danger of destruction, we must send out for help."

"What 'ancient law'? What trouble?" the Doctor asked.

"Shh," Amy said, nudging him. "He's just starting to explain."

"We are a long-lasting society with lifespans a hundred times greater than those of any other creatures on this world. The region that we live in, though, is wet and ever-changing. Plants spring up quickly to repopulate laboriously cleared land. Trees send their roots barreling through underground structures, and fuzzy molds quickly reclaim organic matter. Long ago, there was a book, _The Book that Begins and Never Ends_. Though it was carefully preserved for centuries, it became more and more fragile and mildewed until it just flaked away. But we remember what it said. Every word of it has been passed down. The book instructed us how to find and use the miraculous transportation that sits in the desert. It told us to find and bring back a group of advanced organisms from the far-off planet, which we did. Now, you will help us to restore balance to this planet."

"But what do you want us to do?" Amy asked.

"The book did not say. We assumed you would know."

"The book didn't say," the Doctor repeated. "_The Book that Begins and Never Ends_. An unwieldy title created by a hunting and scavenging society that lives in the rainforest. Primitive groups like that tend to name things based on their appearances. You know what that book sounds like? One with a front cover but no back cover. You only ever had half of the instructions! That's rubbish. Why'd they only give you half of a book? Well, it's never fun anyways to start out with the whole story already written. There has to be some room for improvisation. So, what's your problem?"

"There is another group out in the forest. It is a society of wraiths that have been stealing Orphians, one by one, for months. Once, we lived spread out in the rainforest, each family in its own home. Some lived in huts, some underground, and some in houses nestled among the tree branches. In the middle, equidistant to each home in a cluster of twenty families was a small cleared area where people would gather to talk, cook, and trade. There were thirteen clusters, a thousand and twenty or so Orphians altogether. We would all use this structure," he gestured around himself, "only occasionally, as a gathering place for group decisions or festivals. Since the others in the forest started stealing us, though, we've all had to live underground here, going out in groups during the day to get food and water and wood for cooking. But it is difficult to keep up that process. Large, concentrated groups are not meant to live in a rainforest where resources are so spread out. Within a few weeks, we will either starve or be forced to send more people outside for longer periods of time. The choice is between the deaths of everyone and gradually mounting casualties."

"But you have technology," the Doctor said. "You've got the transporter pad. Why don't you have any technological stuff here? You could have a hundred different ways of cooking food instead of over a wood fire. You could install lights and grow plants inside."

"Such wonders have never existed on this planet. A booklet of instructions was found under the transporter, detailing how to use it. The instructions, left undisturbed in the dry desert air, had not decomposed, but they fell apart into dust after we touched them."

"But someone on this planet must have been technologically advanced at some point. Transporter pads don't just build themselves."

"Other than that they gave us the book, we know nothing about the people."

"You memorized word for word a half-missing book, but no one can remember anything about who gave it to you? It must have been an alien who brought the book and the transport, since there's no sign of any other technology here. But why would anyone specifically tell a civilization to steal humans to help solve problems? Why would an advanced race specifically care about your people?" He leaned his back against the wall and slid to the ground, sitting lightly on his torn feet. If he didn't stop standing, they would never heal. "Continue. Tell us about those mysterious people in the forest."

Doriel took a breath. "They cannot be people. They are mutated beyond recognition, and they suddenly appear and disappear. One moment, a man will be walking in the forest, alone among the trees, and an instant later, he will be surrounded by the strange creatures."

"Why do you keep calling them the 'creatures'?" the Doctor asked.

"Because that's what they are. Those who have seen them describe the beasts as being hideously mutated, with strange, stretched out bodies. They are as tall as you, Doctor, or Amy, but their skin, where it is not scaly, is a muddy blue-brown color. The wear nothing but short kilts around their lower halves. We call them the Twisted Ones, and the name suits them. They have some Orphian traits, though even those are warped: their facial features protrude forward and their hands are clawed. They are a strange amalgamation of animals, with their reptilian tails that end in a clump of fur. They all have some sort of wing, but none are identical. We have used this information to determine that there are only six of these twisted beasts."

"How are they different from each other?"

"We tell them apart by their coloring and by their pattern of limbs. One has a pair of scruffy wings sprouting from between its shoulder blades. One has arms that double as wings, attached at the shoulders as birds' wings are, but with two hands poking out from beneath the feathers at the wrist, and so on."

The Doctor frowned. "Tell us about everything that happened before this started."

"It began four months ago," Doriel said, "when one of our men went missing. It's happened before, and we all thought that he had drowned in the river or fell from a tree and broke his neck. But then, a week later, his body was found with a cracked skull and strange burned puncture marks on his arms and chest.

"A few weeks after that first incident, a group of hunters walking along a trail far from any of the house clusters caught the first glimpse of the Twisted Ones. Four of the beasts appeared without warning around the expedition, and working in pairs, they grabbed two Orphians. There was a brief struggle, and then the creatures disappeared into the air along with their two victims. One moment, the hunters were fighting with the Twisted Ones, and the next moment our people were grappling with empty air, the blood dripping from their weapons the only remaining trace from the creatures.

"After that, things began to escalate. A family was enjoying the evening air one night, when they smelled distant fire. Some climbed trees to see how near the danger was, as fires can be deadly in a forest. Those were the first ones to go. A few moments after ascending, they stumbled back to the ground, trembling as if poisoned. Soon, they were curled up in balls on the ground, moaning, or appeared to be unconscious. The remaining family members began to feel lightheaded, and they cleverly determined that the severity of the poisoning was determined by altitude above the ground. They hurried into the underground houses where the rest of the families in the cluster were sleeping. The adults tried to drag the four severely affected Orphians with them to safety, but they were dead weights, and the poison was beginning to affect the rescuers. Growing increasingly dizzy, the adults were forced to hide below ground, watching helplessly as the Twisted Ones emerged from the forest and dragged the four groaning people away. When light dawned the next day, the rest of the people emerged from underground, perfectly healthy but mourning for their stolen relatives.

"That cluster of homes called a meeting here, in the meeting hall, and warned the others of what happened and how to escape the poison. The following week, the incident with the fire was repeated, but only one, a young child, was stranded on the surface.

"As we've grown increasingly alert and more able to avoid the rapacious hands of the Twisted Ones, the four beasts have begun using more violent means. Rather than using far-off fires as an unknown part of their poisoning process, they are now employing sudden bursts of flame and noise."

"Some sort of explosive, probably," the Doctor muttered to the humans.

"These attacks don't just poison us, they maim and burn, and the Twisted Ones or their minions drag survivors from the wreckage. It is impossible to prepare for these ravenous fires, other than always having other nearby to rush in and carry into underground shelters the wounded ones who have not yet fallen unconscious. Often, the rescuers cannot save everyone before they grow faint and are forced to retreat underground.

"After the first few times that the Twisted Ones used the sudden fires, we agreed that everyone must relocate to this building, where we are unaffected by the poison and safe from the maiming fires."

"And that brings the story up to the present day?" Linda asked.

Doriel looked down at his hands, upset. "There is one more thing. The priests believe that small dosages of the poison are affecting the strands that give us life."

"Yes, yes, good for the priests," the Doctor said, brushing off the spiritual evidence of witch doctors. Then he paused, and held up a hand. "One moment. What did you mean by 'strands that give you life'?"

"It is known that all life is made up of miniscule, invisible pods. Within these pods are double strands that determine who we are, what we look like, how we function. The priests have investigated, and they've determined that the poison is affecting the strands."

The Doctor stood up excitedly, staggering to the side with previously forgotten exhaustion. "Did you hear that?" he asked the humans. "These people, with their nonexistent technology and tribal society, know about genetics! Isn't that intriguing? Something is going on here. These people can't have such detailed and accurate knowledge of biology. They don't have any microscopes or petri dishes or little bottles of science-y chemicals to study things with, and they couldn't have guessed. This is so refreshing, a mystery inside a mystery with a bit of gradual genocide on the side. Though I could certainly do without the side dish." He had been waving his hands in excitement, and his balance, fragile in the best of times, had deserted him as he wheeled around. Amy grabbed his arm, steadying him.

Doriel looked in confusion at the Doctor, wondering at his clumsiness, and noticed the light red footprints that the Time Lord was still leaving. "Your feet are bleeding, John," he said. "Are you injured?"

"They just got scraped while we were walking across that desert. Your mysterious minions, the ones who wear all black, snatched me when I didn't have any shoes on. Who are those three, anyways?"

"His feet are a bit more than scraped, Doriel," Rory asserted. "Do you have any bandages I could use to wrap them up?"

"Of course. I'm terribly sorry about that, John. I can show you all to your room for the night and then fetch some medical supplies, or if you don't want to walk, you can wait here for me to return."

"I can walk just fine," he said. The Doctor placed a hand on Amy's shoulder and stood on one foot, lifting the other foot up to reveal thick red scabs. He wiggled his toes. "See? Already healing."

Doriel nodded and walked over to the door, placing his ear to it. "All clear," he said after a moment.

"So what, you're afraid of your own people? Why do you have to sneak around?" Frank asked.

"Is it dangerous out there?" Carol said in alarm.

"No, no," Doriel reassured them. "They're all wonderful people. Some are kind and caring, some quiet, and some slow to develop trust; they're all different, as I assume the people on your planet are. I'm just afraid that if we run into people in the halls, they'll want to talk to you and ask questions, and the children will want to gawk at your height and clothing and skin." He placed his ear to the door again. "I heard several people walk past half an hour ago, heading towards the main hall. They should all be at dinner now, and it'll be a few minutes yet before they start trickling back to their rooms." He opened the door. "Come on now. Follow me."

Wary of the Doctor's scabbed feet, Doriel led them through the hallways at a more sedate pace this time, giving them plenty of opportunities to look around. The children were walking under their own power now, not being carried, but they were yawning.

Janet grabbed Linda's hand reassuringly, and the two leaned against each other as they walked. Janet stared up at the junction between the walls and the ceiling. Small glowing lights were mounted there, and since Doriel had told them that the Orphians had no technological know-how, the lights must be made from some sort of naturally occurring material. Looking closer, Janet noticed that they were each comprised of three spoon-shaped objects nailed by their ends to the wall and located every two feet. Judging by the similarity between the objects and the insectivorous plants that the group saw earlier, she decided that they must be bioluminescent plant leaves. Janet smiled to herself, pleasantly intrigued by the strange wonders of the new planet.

Doriel led the small group through twisting, organic corridors until at last he came to a stop outside one of the many doors that opened off of the hallways. "This will be your room while you stay with us. I'm sorry that it's so small, but we are short on space with everyone squeezed into this structure." He paused. "Judging by the way that you keep staring at the lights, I'd say that you are used to a different means of illumination. Is that right?" Several humans nodded. "Thought so. There are several erentur leaves, the things that we use for light, in your room. When you want to go to sleep, unpin the leaves from the wall and re-pin them somewhere in the hallway. I'll come back in a few minutes to give you the bandages. Is there anything else you'll need?"

"A meal and some water would be nice," Frank said desperately. "Your black-robed minions didn't give us much on the journey."

"I'll have to have a word with them about the needs of other species," Doriel replied. "There might be some food left over from dinner. I'll go fetch it and come right back." He turned away to leave.

The group filed into the room, their hearts fluttering delightedly at the sight of twelve beds set up in the small space. Along the edges of the room, thick ropes suspended five cots well above the ground. The remaining thin mattresses lay on the ground, in the center of the room or under the hanging beds.

The adults quickly assigned beds, placing children in the hanging beds above their parents' cots. When Linda offered to take one of the suspended beds, the Doctor leapt forward and claimed the remaining one.

"You are so childish, John," Rory complained.

The Doctor collapsed gratefully onto the cot, making it swing slightly on its ropes. "It's a suspended bed, Rory, how could I resist? Suspended furniture is cool. I should get some for the TAR - , er, my house." He pushed off of the wall with his arms, making his bed ram into Stella's. She giggled and set her cot into motion as well. "Geronimo!" the Doctor yelled as the other two children joined the game.

The parents scooted a safe distance away and watched, glad that their children were in high spirits despite the strange and frightening situation. Wary of collisions from David's cot, Linda hopped off onto the ground and sat with Janet, her arm resting around the other woman's shoulders.

In the midst of the chaotic glee, Doriel walked into the room, carrying a cloth bag and a woven basket in his hands. "I'm glad to see the children enjoying themselves," he said. "Here are the medical supplies, food, and water that you asked for. If you want more water at any time, there is a room down the hall with jugs. I'll leave you to your meal now. Sleep well."

Shaking with hunger from their two-day fast, their rasping throats crying out for moisture, the people ravenously unwrapped the contents of the basket. Doriel had given them several crusty loaves of bread, hunks of dried meat, and some unidentifiable fruits.

"Catch, Pond," the Doctor said, throwing Amy his screwdriver. "Setting 421A."

She adjusted the sonic and waved it over the food. After a few seconds, she peered closely at tit to check the readings, as she had often seen the Doctor do. "I can't read it, stupid. It's in Gallifreyan."

"Give it here, then." he said, holding out his hand. Amy tossed the sonic to him. "No toxins of any sort. The water's clean. It should all be safe for consumption."

Frank and Rory carefully divided the food and water up between the twelve of them, and the starving humans laid back on their cots to eat without interruptions for talk.

When she had finished her meal, Stella flipped over on her mattress to face her brother. "I'm tired," she told him quietly. "I never thought the picnic would last for so long."

"It certainly got a bit out of hand," Frank said, reaching up to ruffle his children's hair. "You two go to sleep now. The rest of us grownups are going to have a talk, and then we'll put the lights out." He kissed Stella and David on the head.

"You sleep, too, Jordan," Julia said. The boy frowned and turned over the face the wall, hiding his head under the rough blankets.

"Before we start the meeting, John, I want you to lie on your stomach so I can bandage your feet," Rory commanded as he picked up the bag that Doriel had left them. Inside was a roll of brown, unbleached bandages and a stoppered wooden jar filled with cream.

"So," Linda said, speaking quietly so that the children could sleep, "What are we going to do about these people's problems?"

"I say that we have them take us back to the transporter pad and send us home. We don't know what to do to help them, and plus, it's their problem, not ours. We have our children to look after." Darren crossed his arms and glared.

"Oh come on, Darren," the Doctor said. "Surely you don't mean that. The transporter was pre-connected to Earth, so the mysterious people who built it must have thought that humans in specific could do something to save this planet in a crisis. And in any case, the children will be perfectly safe if we leave them here while we investigate."

Rory, having decided to trust that the cream had healing properties, finished smearing the substance on the Doctor's feet and began wrapping them in bandages. He looked up. "I agree with John," he said.

Amy nodded in agreement. "So do I. If there's anyone who can figure out the problem and get us out of here alive, it's this guy." She indicated him by poking his hanging bed, sending it swaying lightly.

"How about a vote?" Frank asked, always diplomatic. "Who wants to stay?"

The Doctor, the Ponds, Linda, Janet, Carol, and Frank himself raised their hands. Jordan turned over sleepily and muttered his agreement.

"And who wants to leave?"

Darren and Julia raised their hands.

"Well," the Doctor said as he wiggled the toes of his newly bandaged feet, "that settles it. Unless we split up, we're all staying on this planet for a little longer."

"Yeah, Darren and I will stay. It'll be safer that way," Julia said. Darren frowned at her.

"Perfect," Janet concluded. "But we've all had a long journey the past few days, and we'll have a lot to do tomorrow. I say we get some rest."

Upon this they could all agree, so Amy hopped up to take down the light-emitting leaves and pin them back up outside of the room. She shut the door as the came back in, leaving them in darkness.

"Goodnight," she said.

"Sleep tight," Rory added.

"And don't let the memory worms bite. Goodnight, Ponds. Goodnight, neighbors. Sleep well, you wonderful humans." The Doctor slipped under the covers as the bed swayed gently on its ropes like a TARDIS in flight.

Suspended furniture. Very cool.

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Reviews would make me very happy! Per favore?


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